La speciale natura dei sogni e i diritti degli animali nei Träume di Johann Gottlog Krüger (1754)

Without a doubt, the issue of animal rights has now become part of the socio-cultural perspective in a much stronger moral and legal sense than in the past, in the wake of the “animal turn” of the early 90s of the last century. One aspect that has been most debated since ancient times is, however, whether animals have a soul and whether the lack of speech can be considered a symptom of a completely inferior capacity for reasoning. The era of the European Enlightenment certainly showed a peak of interest in this debate, especially on the basis of scientific experiments carried out on animals, but also on the basis of reflections on the natural law of living beings. In Germany, as part of the medical studies in Halle, Johann Gottlob Krüger distinguished himself for having grasped the importance of the considerations - albeit sometimes paradoxical - that had emerged in the context of several interdisciplinary symposiums held in Leipzig at the beginning of the years’ 40 of the eighteenth century on the theme of the soul of animals. The classical philologist Johann Heinrich Winkler had published them later, in 1745, in a volume entitled Philosophische Untersuchungen von dem Seyn und Wesen der Seelen der Thiere […], already preceded by another from 1742, dedicated to a similar topic. The point of interest, however, consists in the particular literary strategy with which Krüger returns these debates of an academic nature, taking advantage of the register of satire to make animals and men and animals of various species interact with each other. In the fictitious dimension of the dream, in which the Hallense physician situates these disputes, it is possible to retrace the various theoretical stages that in the philosophical field accompanied the development of the vexata quaestio relating to the soul of animals, reviewing the positions of Girolamo Rorario (1485-1556), of the surgeon Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente (1533-1619), of Montaigne (1533-1592), of Descartes (1596-1650) and of the iatroteologist Michael Alberti (1682-1757). What matters most, however, are the absurd theoretical justifications that human thought pushes to legitimize its unfair attitude towards the animal world, well highlighted in Krüger’s literary dreams.